万圣节在厦门 Halloween in Xiamen

I never really expected to be doing much for Halloween this year considering I'm in China and it's more of a Western (American) tradition. However, What's On Xiamen hosted a series of Halloween parties for the 老外 (foreigners) to enjoy and for the Chinese to experience some of Western culture and take lots of photos! 

The first party was actually a week before 万圣节 (Halloween) on the 25th October. As it was so early I was completely unprepared with getting a costume and despite finding some cheap ones on 淘宝 (China's answer to eBay/Amazon), it was too late for us to order them so that they would arrive on time for the party. A Chinese friend, Joseph, had told me that a friend of his knew of a shop selling costumes near the main shopping street 中山路 so the day before the party, I went in search of costumes with a few others with no success. We didn't manage to find the shop that a friend of a friend had recommended and ended up trawling round shopping centres where there were Halloween decorations but no costumes before ending up in 沃尔玛 (Walmart) where they did have some Halloween accessories and children's costumes but nothing too inspiring. The next day, on a mission by now and thinking we'd have to resort to swapping clothes and going as each other, Alex (my boyfriend) and I went on a far more successful costume search. This time we went to SM, a huge shopping centre in the middle of the island, where they had a temporary Halloween shop set up that actually sold adult costumes.

The party took place at 海湾公园 (Haiwan Park). There was a stage and a few stalls for drinks etc. in the middle of the park meaning that it was quite cold considering that it's autumn here now. There were plenty of other people in costumes meaning that we didn't feel too out of place and we spent the evening chatting to different people. There were three costume competitions and we were slightly disappointed to have missed the funniest costume category as our costumes (particularly Alex's) received a lot of attention! Once the outside party ended, we went to one of the bars in the park for a bit before calling it a night. The next day we'd been invited to go to a new resort an hour away from Xiamen so we needed our sleep.

Pre-drinks at our friends' apartment - Esmerelda and Youku (Chinese YouTube)

Bumblebee and Herculina

Bumblebee, Elephant and Pocahontas

Cute Chinese lady selling roses at the park

Scariest costume competition

The next party was on the night of actual Halloween. This time it started at the, already mentioned, SM shopping centre before moving onto a nightclub by the park called Royal KK. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera with me so here's a link to some photos from the SM costume party. This event was different from the previous one as it was more focused around the costume competition with a catwalk where competitors had to perform a short routine in the character of their costume. It was quite entertaining to watch and the winner of the contest won a 4-day luxury cruise worth about £900! What's On Xiamen had plenty of free drinks coupons to hand out once we were at the club so a good night was had by all.